The present invention relates to apparatus for mixing a comminuted food material and a liquid and, particularly to such apparatus adapted to produce a solid or semi-solid food article.
Devices specially adapted for separately storing, dispensing and mixing of two or more liquid materials to produce a liquid drinking product have been known and used for a number of years. With the advances of recent years in the art of drying and preserving of food materials in comminuted form adapted to be readily mixed with a liquid, ordinarily water, such devices have been modified and new devices have been developed for separately storing, dispensing and mixing of a comminuted food material with an appropriate liquid to produce a liquid drink or food product. A substantial proportion of such devices characteristically are operative to perform their dispensing and mixing functions by measuring the respective total required quantities of each constituent material and to dispense each such measured quantity into an appropriate receptacle with the mixing of the materials occurring by the limited agitation of the materials created upon the receipt of the liquid material in the receptacle. As will be understood, such devices can effectively mix a liquid and a food material only if the food material is adapted to readily dissolve or otherwise readily mix with a liquid upon relatively little agitation of the materials and, therefore, are relatively limited in application to the preparation of liquid food and liquid drink products and are generally unacceptable for the preparation of solid or semi-solid food articles which ordinarily require a greater degree of mixing agitation. In fact, it is believed that there presently does not exist any apparatus which is adapted to automatically dispense and mix a liquid and a comminuted food material, without supplementary mechanical agitation of the dispensed components, to effectively produce such a solid or semi-solid food article. An apparatus of this type could be very advantageously applied, either commercially or for personal consumption, to individually prepare many common food articles which rely primarily or solely upon the mechanical agitation of a liquid and a comminuted food component for mixing thereof, e.g. pancake or cookie batter and the like, a variety of common food articles normally made in patty form such as potato cakes or other vegetable patties, or other less common food articles such as arepas, a staple item in certain South American countries formed of corn meal, water and salt.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for dispensingly mixing a liquid and a comminuted food material without supplementary agitation of the constituent materials to produce a solid or semi-solid food article.